


Touch Stone

by StarkRavingSpiders (GabesGurl)



Series: Drabbles, Minis, and Requests [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: After endgame, But a better ending for Peter?, M/M, Marvel Multiverse, Multiverse, Not A Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 03:20:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19287061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GabesGurl/pseuds/StarkRavingSpiders
Summary: Peter keeps Tony's arc reactor for years but still seems to be fading away. Strange has an idea to fix it(This is really a fic IDEA that is also a fic kind of?)





	Touch Stone

 The reactor had been one that Tony kept it as a backup in case anything like a shield to the chest happened again. Peter grabs it on a whim and slides it into his pocket praying that Friday won’t rat him out. **  
**

She doesn’t. She tells him that everything in the lab was open to Peter, whatever he wanted was his. So he takes it and still feels guilty. But with his sensitive touch he can almost feel the movement of the nanites in the reactor. It makes him feel like something of Tony is with him no matter how silly the thought.

He never meant for it to become a touchstone, but somehow that's what happened. He wasn’t even aware on the ride home how his hand went into his pocket holding the reactor as his eyes burned and his soul continued to feel like it bled.

That night he had the first of his nightmares. He sat there watching once more as the life faded from Tony’s eyes and he woke up sobbing into his pillow fumbling in the dark. His body relaxing at the soft glow.

The months fade away to years and everyone has moved on, but for some reason he can’t. He still holds that reactor and it comes with him everywhere. As he graduated ESU, as he discovered the Parker Particles. Still the arc reactor comforts him. His soul still feels raw and open and he doesn’t feel like the person he used to be.

It’s only when Doctor Strange comes to him to tell him he can’t watch him fade away any longer that he realizes how much he’s changed. He’s 26 now and somehow it still feels like he lost Tony yesterday not 10 years ago.

He hung out with Strange often. They actually kind of had a long standing monthly tea get together where the older man always grilled him. He’d stare at Peter with a knowing gaze as Peter tried to explain he was living but something wasn’t right.

So when Strange told him he could giver him Tony back he’d wondered the catch. The Wizard explained that he and Wong had been searching the multiverse and had found a Tony who wasn’t moving on after his Peter’s death.

He explained that when you connected to someone you sometimes forged connections between your souls and that’s why neither he nor the other Tony could move on. It’s why they were stuck perpetually grieving.

There were a couple of catches. He would be going back to only a year after the other Peter had passed and where Thanos had never been even a blip on the radar. And it was a one way trip, he wouldn’t be able to come back to this universe ever.

He’d agreed, almost too quickly. He was horribly selfish in that and he had met Strange’s hard stare dead on before pulling the softly glowing reactor out of his pocket.

Peter explains quietly that he’s carried it with him daily for 10 years and couldn’t sleep without it. How he wasn’t whole and he needed to exist somewhere Tony was alive, even if the man couldn’t reconcile him with the Peter he lost.

And Strange smiles a surprisingly tender smile and Peter wonders what he knows. When he asks, Strange tells him the other Tony is looking for a Peter, for him also.

That’s how not even 24 hours later Peter finds himself stepping through a portal and into Stark Tower that looks so similar and so different and into the arms of the man he loves.

There are many many tears shed that day and the days after as they learn about each other. So different yet so achingly familiar that it would be impossible not to love the other and Peter could only reassure Tony that as Peter Parker if his Tony was left alone he would have been so grateful for any other Peter that stepped in to keep that dead look out of the older man’s eyes. 

Because Tony had tortured himself since the loss of his Peter, he’d turned back to alcohol and days upon days with no sleep. Not even caring about himself at all.

And when Tony one day discovers the nano reactor, laying on the dresser he sweeps Peter into his arms and just holds him and reassures him that it’s ok and he loved him and he’d never leave again.

And slowly they heal…..together

 

 


End file.
